34 articles
Cape Breton

Well, gee. Where does the time go? My last post was one month ago, and the one before that, one month prior again. It’s not as if I haven’t had the time. It’s not as if I haven’t had plenty of big thoughts. But I’ve been trying to adjust my priorities a bit, and blog…

I am sitting in a studio apartment overlooking the Mira River, that broad stripe of blue that loops about the soul of every native-born Cape Bretoner, crooning like a homing beacon whenever they’re Away. The sun is going down, adding a subtle swath of lavender above the treeline. I don’t go out for vistas very…

Strange days in Cape Breton. The winter churns our thoughts with blasts of wind and dumps of snow. Today it was so icy that S’s car skidded off the highway and up onto a windrow. Snow and ice mean cancelled classes, which means grownups’ schedules are upended as the kids stay home. January is the…

The year is winding down. It’s time to check in on the little creature that carries half my DNA. She is still six years old — nearly “six and a half,” although curiously she doesn’t measure her age that way, as many children do. It is especially odd because she is a big fan of…

If you were wondering why my posts have slowed to a trickle of late… I’d imagined my sabbatical as time to renew – either recharging to throw myself back into my normal life with vigour, or else take stock, make informed changes, increase harmony – y’know, get better at, well, life. But no. Same mistakes,…

I’m no mathematician, but if monogamy is about finding the right algebraic equation to create balance and harmony on both sides of the equals sign, then polyamory is calculus. And in the same way that I never actually learned calculus in school, I did not join the polyamory platoon with an instruction manual; hardly anybody…

September 15 was the last official day of Peak Season, although we could feel the signs of a wind-down as early as the final week of August. That’s when the crowds began to thin even so slightly. We still saw hundreds of visitors per day, in a year that overall has had a 47% increase…

I’m standing in the middle of a school playground on a scorching hot day. There’s no shade anywhere. All around me, children of various sizes are hurling their awkward young bodies around – up and down the slide, all across the monkey bars, over and around a series of stumps that form a perimeter separating…

Attendance at the Fortress of Louisbourg has been up nearly 50% this summer, with well over 100,000 visitors arriving by car, motorcycle, motor home, or cruise-ship-by-way-of-coach-bus. The spike in attendance is partly due to uncommonly good weather, but mostly we can thank the federal government for its Canada 150-themed waiving of admission. As we marvelled…

In June, it’s the swallows. They swoop down from roofs and rafters, trailing their forked tails as they search out the puddles surrounding the Dauphin Gate. On foggy Louisbourg mornings, they seem like stealth bombers, manifesting suddenly from nowhere as they zero in on their goal. They slurp up globs of mud in their stubby…